The Question: Walk Into the Streets
by The Chosen One1
Summary: He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.
1. Chapter 1

Walk into the streets, where skyscrapers sweat blood and city lamps blink corruption.

Same thing. Nothing changes.

Papers hide the truth between the lines. A business mogul is lying. A business mogul is under indictment. The paper says he'll receive justice; the spaces between otherwise. The people listen to the lines. The business mogul goes free; the lines say he received justice. The spaces between say they told you so.

Same thing. Nothing changes.

In 1941 a president withheld troops to start a good war. In 2001 a president stayed his hand to start his own.

Same thing. Nothing changes.

Morals fly; icons deflect bullets. Yesterday a train was lifted from its tracks. Today low-rent apartments were bulldozed for a low-priced, low-paying minimum wage shopping center. Cost of living declines, value of pay declines, number of low-rent apartments for low-wage families decline, value of living declines. No one to change the course of trickle-down economics. No one to leap eminent domain in a single bound.

Same thing. Nothing changes.

Trench coat is heavy with rain and soot and sin. Blank face hides blank sympathy for people who let themselves be lied to and abused because it's easier than looking for the truth. No pity for a man who shoots himself in the foot. No pity for a man who carries scorpions across rivers. No pity for a man who builds houses on sand and buries money in the dirt.

Walk the streets a hundred times; a hundred times it's the same: Answers forgotten, to be answered again and forgotten. Repetition. Recurring. There's a greater truth out there.

Question is, where?

City hides its true face and puts on a false smile. I hide my false face behind a true one. Blank.

The world will not change itself, so I will change it for it.

A faceless man trying to change the world on his own.

Same thing. Nothing changes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

  


Right now, all I can think about is how terrible you smell.

Sure, I smile when I take your hand; I pretend to hang on your every word. But, as you're talking, on the inside I'm gagging. You're repulsive; you're noxious. Words can't begin to describe how little I can stand being near you right now.

Don't feel bad: you're not the only one. Every single person here is an invisible mess. Mayors and monsters, they all smell the same to me. Sure, try to hide it behind mouth wash; try to cover it up with cologne. Now you smell like mint-flavored garbage. Now you smell like lilacs and vinegar.

These benefit dinners are anything but beneficial. Millionaires brag about their millions; moguls network with politicians. Men of power. Men with money. Rich and powerful men. Served by children of servants; waited on by the lowly. Powerless men. Men with barely a penny and a name. Rot and disease, each and every one.

Only their money smells clean.

Their hands I take with revulsion; their cash, I take with zeal.

I excuse myself from the conversation. I'll do this seven times before the night is out. The grease and oil of a dozen palms lingers on mine. Disgusting. Filthy. My skin will be scrubbed raw when I return to the event; scrubbed bleeding when I escape home.

Home. My sanctuary. Where every tile is scrubbed brilliant. Marble, polished sanitary.

My home. My fortress.

I hang my coat in the closet, third slot from the left. My suit jacket, I unbutton; my tie, I loosen. With flared nostrils I devour fresh, clean, sterilized oxygen, while my hands fidget all the way to the bathroom. I can't get to my sink fast enough.

I fold my jacket and place it on the edge of my toilet; my tie, I fold and set parallel to my suit. Water rushes out, hot, into my porcelain sink while I roll up my sleeves.

I can smell you under my fingernails. I can smell the mayor on my wrist. On my knuckles is the aroma of men who are less visible but no less powerful; men whose influence touches towers of ivory and reach into alleys both deep and dark. Not a single one could wait to shake my hand. I smell each and every one upon my own.

My hands slip under the water. The steam lifts each despicable particle away. I close my eyes and sigh with relief.

That is when my shower curtains pull back. That is when a man in a blue trench coat steps out, wrapped in pale smoke. A faceless man.

He reaches his arms towards me. Reaches out, but not for my hand.

The last thing I smell is formaldehyde, burnt marshmallows, and blood.

The last thing I feel are his fingers over my throat.

I wish I hadn't shook your hand.


End file.
